I've just posted our FAQ over at the Royal Canterlot Library website — I'm copying and pasting the questions below for ease of reference. If there are questions about our group or mission that we haven't answered, this is the place to ask them.

What’s the difference between this and a (FIMFiction/Equestria Daily) feature?

Our goal is to spotlight the best of the best. We feature one story per week, so we’re more selective than FIMFic/EqD. We also post custom-crafted interviews to give readers insight into the story and the author behind it.

How do you select your stories?

Each story goes through a two-part vetting process. First, one of our five curators must feel that the story displays special merit, above and beyond simply being enjoyable fanfiction. Once a story is nominated, all five curators read it and assign it a score on a secret judging scale. If the cumulative score passes a threshold, it's featured.

The scoring process is subjective, but the threshold is set such that no single judge can qualify a story, and no single judge can veto a story. This forces us to reach consensus on which stories are the most deserving of recognition, and helps ensure that honored stories appeal to a variety of tastes.

Which stories are eligible for featuring?

• Stories must be complete to be eligible.
• There are no length requirements or genre restrictions.
• Mature content does not disqualify a story, but our focus is on literary merit.
• Neither story popularity nor author popularity are factored into our process. (Stories do NOT have to be featureboxed, Equestria Daily-featured, or even published on FIMFiction in order to be eligible. However, all of those factors increase the odds of a story first coming to our attention.)
• Stories which have already been featured in the Pony Fiction Vault, or which received a six-star rating on Equestria Daily, are considered “grandfathered in” to the Library and will not be spotlighted.

Do you accept story submissions?

Stories must be nominated by one of our five curators. However, we realize that in a community this big, it can be easy to overlook good stories, so we do accept reading recommendations.

In order to suggest a story, follow the instructions on the Story Recommendation Thread. Please note that self-submissions are not allowed.

What type of stories do you look for?

On our About page, you can see what we individually like to see in stories, but keep in mind that scoring involves all five of us. Collectively, we want stories that are exemplars in their genre. Don't write a story because you think we'll like that type of story — write something that does what it sets out to do really, really well.

Can authors have more than one story in the Library?

Yes, but we prioritize stories from authors not yet featured.

1931596

Stories which have already been featured in the Pony Fiction Vault, or which received a six-star rating on Equestria Daily, are considered “grandfathered in” to the Library and will not be spotlighted.

I certainly understand this, but at the same time, a lot of those stories are very, very old. As the fandom grows, there's an increasing number of people who've never even heard of many of those stories. So perhaps once a story that qualified for either of those has reached a certain age, it becomes eligible for spotlight? Not even necessarily the whole interview process, but maybe just a compilation of "old greats" or something.

1931945
We would hope that people would be willing to go through the Vault on their own while we're still working on building our site. :B That's not too much to ask, is it?

1931596>>1931945>>1932010

Sorry, I meant to respond to everyone.

Maybe you could leave those grandfathered stories as filler for when the five judges haven't agreed on a story yet. Is that likely to happen? I'm not sure how often you guys are going to have three people that like a story and two that don't.

Or maybe leave one week a month for spotlighting older stories?

1931945 1932378 1932010
The flip side to that is that the fandom continues to grow, and there are stories that haven't been featured yet that are at least as good as the great stories everyone nostalgically remembers. There's a place for both. All other things being equal, there's more value in finding new honorees than in repeating the work of our predecessors.

I could maybe see something like off-day postings to mention the emeritus stories, but that strikes me as a discussion for the future, once we establish our own brand.

(also to note: we've currently got a three-month queue and at least another month's worth that have been approved but not interviewed, so "lull days" don't seem like a thing that will happen.)

I have a question, actually.

On the website, will you guys eventually add a page that acts as an index with the authors/stories listed (presumably) in alphabetical order which then link to the specific interviews? I can imagine that as the content grows, having something like this for exploring would be very handy.

So... I have a question.

If we're not allowed to self-submit, are we allowed to tell fans about the suggested reading thread, without asking them to suggest us?

I only ask because I have a very small following, and this site is slightly obscure due to its relative newness.

2046807
Good idea! Thank you.

2049533
I think that's within the spirit of the project, and appreciate you wanting to stay within the rules.

Basically, if one of your readers, without any prompting from you, believes you've written one of the best stories in the fandom, then it doesn't matter how they get here. We want to hear what readers think is good!

Can authors have more than one story in the Library?
Yes, but we prioritize stories from authors not yet featured.

Question: How would you go about doing this? Would you simply copy-paste the first introduction, ask for a new one from the same author, or simply ask new questions?

3606557
We have yet to work out a system just yet, given that we haven't had to do this so far. (We do have a couple repeat stories in reserve, we're just waiting to run out of first-timers. Hasn't happened yet!) It would likely include new questions, though.

2046807
2057211
Did this ever happen? As far as I can tell, the archives here are divided up by genre, and on Wordpress by date; I can't see a page that's all the RCL entries in one big list.

Their is the "Interviewed" shelf, but that doesn't seem to be exactly the same -- for one thing, the number of stories is different from the count in this group. Plus, if such an archive could be put up in the Wordpress site, it would be much easier to get both interview and story by clicking through to the former and then the latter than by clicking the story and either hoping the description's been edited to include a link or finding the interview separately.

3887620

for one thing, the number of stories is different from the count in this group.

The group shelves are lame and count stories once for each genre they're in. So a story tagged [Comedy][Slice of Life] is two stories in this group.

3887840 Ok, that confirms my suspicion that group counts are hinky generally, but it's the shelf count that's higher.

3887620 2046807
Per your reminder, I've added an archive page which lists the features alphabetically by author. A little crude, but it's what the CMS gives us to work with, and those go straight to the interview links.

3887620

There is the "Interviewed" shelf, but that doesn't seem to be exactly the same -- for one thing, the number of stories is different from the count in this group.

The "Interviewed" bookshelf includes both stories featured by the RCL, and stories featured by its predecessor, RBDash47's Pony Fiction Vault. As 3887840 notes, the group folders also have that weird duplication thing going on. We've done … hmm … looks like 60 features now, so the new Archive page on our site should help keep those straight.

3888985 The archive page is sweet -- thanks! -- and the shelf thing sounds like it adds up --lots of extra counting above RCL entries on both counts, but for different reasons.

How's your guys' backlog? I'm thinking of stuff to recommend but all my first thoughts are additional works by authors already RCL'd or PFV'd.

3889117
We're not running out of new authors to feature, but go ahead and throw 'em out there! Worst-case scenario is that they get bumped down on the priority list, and meanwhile folks cruising the recommendation thread can pick up on some cool suggestions.

3887620

the number of stories is different from the count in this group.

To go along with what 3887840 said, this is also my fault because I am terrible at remembering to update that damn shelf.

3889382 You have to update the shelf manually? AHAHAHAHA KNIGHTY HATES YOU I mean, gosh, we're very thankful for the work you do, PP.

3892204
it's a living :B

Do you guys have a list somewhere of all the authors/stories that have been featured? I know you can go through the story folders but that's a pain relative to CTRL+F.

3909036
There's something on their main website here.

3909458
It was my idea! :3

3909668
It was!

3909036
I don't actually know how you're supposed to access it, but the "Interviewed" bookshelf, which is sitewide on Fimfic, has everything that I've remembered to put there, just a week late.

3909898
I was about to say just click on "Library," but that doesn't work anymore. knighty, why?

3909910
I think you have to actually open one of your libraries. Hitting the main button isn't enough.

3910056
:/

3910056
3910406
You have to click it to get the menu, then click it again to go to the actual library page.